Lawmakers dump lab plan

By Jordan Carleo-Evangelist and Dennis Yusko

Updated 6:41 am, Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Albany

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's novel plan to let the private sector finance a $600 million state public health lab in Albany may have been just a little too novel for state lawmakers consumed with sexier and less complex budget issues.

The Legislature dropped the proposal for a consolidated mega-lab on the Harriman State Office Campus from the state budget that was approved Monday night.

But the spending plan will mean a boost for Saratoga County and Saratoga Springs, one of seven upstate racino host communities that will see a nearly 27 percent hike in aid associated with the state-sanctioned video lottery terminals at the 10-year-old Saratoga Casino and Raceway.

For Saratoga Springs, that will mean an extra $500,000 toward replacing deep cuts in the racino revenue-sharing made in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Of the nine racinos in New York, seven are north of New York City. Annual state VLT funding for the city has fluctuated between a high of $3.3 million in 2008 and zero in 2009 and 2010.

Saratoga Springs' host funding would increase by $498,341 to an estimated $2.3 million. The county's annual VLT haul would increase by $166,114.

The budget, however, made no changes to Cuomo's plan to close the medium-security Mount McGregor Correctional Facility in July and establish a tax-free economic development zone on the site.

The Capital Region may also benefit from a new tax credit for touring stage productions that hold their technical rehearsals in New York state — a win for the "Thruway Theaters" upstate that argue that the tune-ups pump millions into the economies that host them.

The 25 percent tax credit will be capped at $4 million per year and goes into effect in 2015.

In Albany, Cuomo's pitch for the new Harriman lab asked lawmakers not for money but for the legal authorization to privatize the design, construction, financing and maintenance of the complex in a way that a state agency has never done before.

Known as a "P-3" — for public-private partnership — the plan would have allowed the state to enter into a 50-year pact with a firm charged with designing, building and operating the state-owned facility in return for annual "service payments" from state coffers.

Whyland acknowledged at least some of the reservations were linked to the private financing, which critics say allows the state incur long-term financial obligations without reflecting those obligations in its outstanding debt. Cuomo's administration contended it would speed construction and improve the quality of the end product, but acknowledged Monday that the proposal required more discussion.

Among the local concerns, said Assemblyman John T. McDonald III, was that the project amounted to the private construction of a new building on state land without any direct benefit to the city of Albany at a time when local leaders are pushing the state to compensate the city for the 330 acres of tax-exempt land.

Both McDonald, a Cohoes Democrat, and Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, an Albany Democrat, said they wanted to see the lab project discussed in the broader context of compensation to the city.